Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Give Your Project a Home
Categories:
Teams
Categories: Teams
| Have you ever been on a project where the team members and the project manager resemble migratory birds? This nomadic existence does not lend itself well to fostering project cohesion and direction. And without a cohesive project team, project performance can suffer. In my experience, one of the more effective ways to produce cohesion and focus on a project is to have a central location that serves as its geographic and social home. To create such a home, project managers should build and operate a "project control room." The project control room is a gathering spot for a team to conduct essential project activities with a high level of productive interaction. Having created project control rooms in the past, I can attest they're a great method to increase the overall performance of a project team. Here are a few aspects that make for a successful project control room -- and ultimately, a successful project: 1. Tell the story of the project. The project control room is a great venue to share an at-a-glance view of disposition of a project. This can be done by printing the key artifacts on large-format paper using a plotter and posting them on a wall. These would include, but are not limited to the overall project schedule, current status readouts, risks/issue list, deliverable lists and milestones status. If budget and time permit, project teams can create virtual "printouts" by projecting them on television screens, which also saves a lot of paper each week! 2. Enable collaboration. Design the project control room to foster communication and interaction between people. This can include items such as a group meeting area, private phone rooms, electrical outlets to plug in computers, speakerphones, good lighting, soundproofing and comfortable chairs. In addition, the project manager and at least one member of the project support team should be in the project control room on a recurring basis to support ad-hoc dialogue and meetings. 3. Offer a visible project destination. Use signage with the project name and objective to make the project control room visible to passers-by. Set the room as the location for regular project meetings. At the start of the project, communicate to project leadership that the project control room is the home for the project and its team members. To reduce expenses and mobilization time, the room could be shared across multiple projects; each team can claim a wall for project artifacts as well as set consistently recurring times to use the room. 4. Make every detail count. Even the smallest details can contribute to an effective project control room. For example, how many times have you reached for a marker to write thoughts on a board and found the marker empty of ink? Supplying the room with an abundance of office supplies -- such as board markers, notepads, large sheets of paper to capture action lists -- helps reduce administrative distractions. In addition, keep a stockpile of the project team's favorite snacks and drinks on hand. Everyone knows how project activities can consume a lot of energy! Creating and operating a project control room goes a long way toward building the cohesion that allows teams to operate at a high level of performance without distractions. Do you have any good tips for project control rooms? Maybe a recommended type of snack or drink that gets project sponsors to enthusiastically attend project meetings on a regular basis? |
A Hollywood-Style Move From PM to Scrum Master
Categories:
Agile
Categories: Agile
Cinephiles and regular movie-goers know who Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins is. Sir Anthony is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television, considered to be one of the greatest living actors. Your journey as a project management practitioner may be similar to Sir Anthony's journey as an actor. You may have to play different roles in projects and might gained recognition for your work. As your journey continues, you may be looking for the next stop that may lead you to explore other project management disciplines, like agile -- and, in particular, the role of an agile scrum master. From Stage to Movie Set Versatility is a virtue of all great actors. Though Sir Anthony has experience as a stage actor, acting for a film is quite different. As a stage actor, Sir Anthony had to undergo many rehearsal hours, and experienced a specific, tight-knit team of actors and staff. Lighting and environment are essential for the performance and there is no room for error in every live show. A theatrical play delivers a well-defined "product" that may resemble what agilists call a "traditional project" under waterfall methodology. As a project manager, you "manage the stage" of the project, meeting the stakeholders' pre-defined requirements and applying your skills supported by the project team. Your project will deliver the product or service it was intended for. But on the film set, Sir Anthony likely needed to be more flexible, since a scene may require several takes until the director is pleased. The film set is more dynamic: different locations; a different type of crew; the addition or removal of stunts, etc. The phases of a motion picture-making -- pre-production, principal cinematography and post-production -- are similar to sprints in an agile environment. Sir Anthony makes transferring acting skills from stage to the film set seem easy. But like him, you also have transferrable skills: you can communicate, influence, orchestrate and remove roadblocks. You can use these talents to help you adjust to the new project environment. From Hannibal to Odin While Sir Anthony has occupied diverse roles -- from Richard Nixon (Nixon, 1995) to Odin (Thor, 2011) -- he's been successful because he's always prepared properly, trained to correctly represent the character and depended on his foundation as an actor (whatever the media). As a project practitioner, you are likely familiar with PMI's A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)--Fifth Edition, tools and techniques; best practices; and project methodology of the company or customer you work for. Those elements complement your preparation and training as a project manager -- and lay the foundation to explore and learn new methodologies like agile. What is your experience as a project management practitioner transitioning to scrum master? |
To Have and To Hold
| In one of my previous posts, I suggested ways to maintain documentation. And as you know, documentation is very important -- it's the essence of knowledge transfer. The beauty of documentation is that it allows us to avoid the pains of reinventing a series of events that may only reside in a person's mind as a singular experience. It can also lead us to extract some aspect that may move our project from uncertainty and unknowns to more useful information. So, once we have taken the precautions I mentioned in my previous post for generating clear and valid documentation, the question becomes: What project documentation should we always have and hold on to? I would suggest, at a minimum, the following: The charter. It is the closest disclosure to everything the project should touch on. It includes a high-level look at the project: resource list, budget, timeline, assumptions, constraints, risks, other areas of impact and dependencies, a brief description and an immediate focus. Budget background and expenditures. This information typically details the budget spending and directs you to possible future support, if any can be used again. Sources. These include contacts and stakeholders; where information is stored; direct lines of contact; contacts who would be next in the succession; who and where to reach out to in case of additional needs; and where information stemmed from, and how it should be categorized and even prioritized. A status report of risks and issues in their most recent form. These items show the progress that has or has not been made and is especially helpful in communicating to a new project manager (or yourself, if returning to a project) where to pick up. This status report can even help determine the project's resource needs. Scope. This tells you what should have been the focus of the project. It also helps determine whether there needed to be an extension to this scope or if something different should be embarked upon, such as a total new project or maybe a revamping of the current scope. Are there any types of documentation you find significant to have during a project and to hold on to after a project closes? |
Leading With Integrity
Categories:
Leadership
Categories: Leadership
| A few months ago, I wrote about the essential principles of leadership, and one seemed to have really struck a chord with readers. That principle is integrity. And, as I prepared to write some thoughts on the role of integrity in leadership, several examples of why integrity is so important jumped to mind. Take the case of the United States senator accused of plagiarizing his college thesis paper, or the seemingly lenient penalty that the National Football League commissioner laid down on one of the league's stars over a domestic violence incident, when other comparable infractions have drawn much stronger responses. What these two situations have in common is a lack of integrity that, on the surface, seems to be driven by taking the easy way out. Integrity is often defined as "doing the right thing when no one is watching." I don't think that is an appropriate enough definition, though. Integrity is the act of doing the right thing, even if it is extremely difficult. That being said, here are a few tips on how you can lead your project teams with integrity: 1. Lead honestly. The foundation of leadership and integrity is leading with honesty. You can't tell everyone everything they want to hear all the time and still get things done. Business doesn't work like that and life doesn't work like that. So to be a high-integrity leader, you need to be honest in all cases. As Erika Flora, PMP, PgMP, told me recently, being a leader requires you to "be brutally honest and provide feedback that sometimes people just don't want to hear." You can put this to work by setting clear and realistic expectations of your team, sponsors and stakeholders at the beginning, and not allowing yourself to be tied down to unrealistic expectations just to make everyone happy. 2. Take ownership. I've been in a number of organizations that faced a challenge of ownership in their projects. What that means is people are running around with big titles and the expectation is that those who report to them will jump at their slightest utterance. And as long as everything is moving along according to plan, everything is great. But as soon as the project goes off track, the "leader" is looking to point fingers and place blame to help relieve his or her responsibility. Don't do that. Being a leader and having integrity means you have to take responsibility for your performance and your team's, good or bad. As a leader, you should always start the project by telling your team something along the lines of, "Ultimately, I am responsible for the success or failure of this project, but I can't do it without you." 3. Share the spotlight. To be a strong leader of high integrity, you need to allow your team members to receive some of the glow and adulation that comes with goals achieved, projects delivered that exceed expectations and overall high performance. Allowing your team members to receive this share of the attention will make it much easier for you to get buy-in on tough issues or tricky situations in the future because they'll see you as the kind of manager who allows them to receive recognition. By the same token, when it comes to delivering bad news and accepting criticism, allowing yourself to receive the blame and not looking to share that blame with your team will engender a great deal of goodwill. And never, ever look to use one of your team members as a scapegoat for something that is ultimately your responsibility. How do you see integrity playing out in your current team? |
Finding Innovation Through Design Thinking
Categories:
Innovation
Categories: Innovation
| Recently, I came across a concept presented by U.S. businessman and author Tim Ogilvie centered on "design thinking" -- how to turn abstract ideas into practical applications to maximize business growth. Since the core of portfolio management centers on identifying the right opportunities through strategic alignment, innovation and transformation, this concept seems to apply to our job as portfolio managers. Of course, this is easier said than done, and although innovation is typically defined as a "breakthrough," it is actually accomplished through trial-and-error experimentation and old-fashioned hard work and perseverance. I think of innovation as "fail fast, fail often," but more accurately as "recover even quicker." Mr. Ogilvie asks some key questions, to which I've added my own thoughts on how they apply to portfolio management in identifying the right innovative projects or programs in a systematic way:
Innovation Model Canvas The Innovation Canvas and its eight key components is another way to find and sell innovation. You can easily put this on a one-page document or even the back of the napkin to concisely describe to executive sponsors why a project or program changes the way the organization does business. If you can only partially fill out the grid, then the project may require more development. You may even want to do two versions -- one for the current state and another for the future state: What methods do you use to spot innovation in your projects and programs? |